GENERAL
Philatelically,
these stamps are quite collectable and are cherished by specialists. Because
they were sold, even though quite illegally, they were still placed on letters
and parcels and placed into the mail stream by the postal workers. So they were
used for postage, they simply did not represent income to the Postal
Administration.
Considerable research has led to the estimated quantities produced and sold. The fraud began in 1869, but the number of surviving 1869 dated stamps are few so we assume that in 1869 the theft was minimal. There may be as few as a dozen or two surviving postal frauds with an 1869 date. This leads to the speculation that very few stamps antedated '69 were ever sold. Perhaps as few as a dozen sheets of stamps.
But in 1870 and 1871 the increased their illegal efforts significantly to the point where it greatly impacted normal stamp sales and the Postal Administration could see a trend of diminishing income. The diminishing income may have been the first hint of the fraud. But students believe that it was a pretty major impact, especially in Mexico City.
In order to disguise their efforts, the forgers produced many stamps and even imprinted the district names on them in the manner that was required by regulation. Had they focused on a single district, the caper may have been discovered immediately. But by distributing their efforts such that 29 of the 40 districts were represented, they were able to keep their little scheme under wraps for a time.
The offices that have representative tipos are Mexico, Veracruz, Puebla, San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Monterey, Mazatlan, Morelia, Colima, Queretaro, Zacatecas, Jalapa, Tulancingo, Toluca, Merida, Cordova, Chihuahua, Durango, Oaxaca, Cuernavaca, Acapulco, Chiapas, Saltillo, Huejutla, Lagos, Tabasco, Tampico and Guadalajara. Representative surviving stamps are more prevalent for some of the offices vs. the others.
Districts that have never been found with representative tipos stamps are Matamoros, Orizava, Campeche, La Paz, C. Victoria, Ures, Maravatio, Tula, Aguascalientes and Tlaxcala. It is not known why the forgers didn't ever create stamps for these offices, but apparently they did not. Or they did and the stamps are just so scarce that none have ever been reported.
All five of the denominations were fraudulently produced. The 6 centavos is very rare, perhaps fewer than a dozen ever having been reported. The 12 centavos, though much more common, are also somewhat scarce, especially for some offices. The 25, 50 and 100 centavos stamps are quite easy to find. The 100s do present a bit of a problem, simply because very few 100s were used for any reason, therefore they become scarce as a result of the low usage of high-value stamps. And, certain districts have no representative 100s. In fact most of the districts have no representative 100 centavos stamps.
It becomes obvious that the forgers manufactured and sold the stamps that were most likely to be in demand and at the same time most profitable. So it is no surprise that the 6 centavos were not produced in any great quantities, and probably for the same reason the 12 centavos were produced in smaller quantities. After all, it takes two 12s to equal one 25. The 25 centavos stamps seem to be the most popular forged. All of the offices that are mentioned as having representative tipos, have 25 centavos tipos. A few of those offices have only 25 centavos representative stamps.
The actual loss can only be estimated by considering the declining sales of genuine stamps in the years 1870 and 1871. There is no way to project what the increase should have been, but Mexico was in a recovery period, new businesses were opening and the mail system was handling more mail. Yet the sales of postage stamps were declining. When in 1870 and 1871 stamps sales should have increased, they actually decreased by a total value of approximately 40,000.00 pesos. In today's pesos, that amount would be approximately 5,848,000.00 pesos. This computation is for Mexico City only. To determine the national loss the figure would be increased by 15%, or 6,725,200.00.